A national action plan against Lyme diseasewill be presented in September 2016 for “strengthen the prevention of the disease, consolidate its diagnosis, improve the care of people who are affected and involve all the stakeholders in this fight“. This was announced on June 29, 2016 by the Ministry of Healthduring a meeting with associations fighting against Lyme disease.
The Ministry thus wishes to reaffirm its commitment “for full recognition of Lyme disease and the implementation of reinforced actions in favor of prevention, screening and patient care“.
Improving Lyme Disease Screening
Last May, 70 patients with Lyme disease complained against the Bio Mérieu laboratory, manufacturer of the screening test for the disease. The lack of reliability of this test had not allowed or delayed the management of poorly diagnosed patients. In response to cries of alarm from associations supporting these patients, such as France-Lyme and Lyme Without Borders, the national plan announced by the government therefore plans to improve the detection of the disease. “An evaluation of the screening tests was carried out by the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM), training for biologists was provided to facilitate the interpretation of the results and the instructions for the screening tests were discounted“ thus revealed the ministry.
Watch out for tick bites in summer and fall
Lyme disease (or borreliosis) can be transmitted by the bites of ticks of the genus Ixodes when it contains the Borrelia bacterium. In France, more than 27,000 new cases are recorded each year but, according to the France Lyme association, the number of real cases is twice as high, due to the difficulty of diagnosis. In France, summer and autumn are the times of greatest risk for tick bitesin particular in the Grand-Est region, in Auvergne, and in Limousin.
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